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Weekly Wrap-up ~ All Over the Place and Back Again


Monday would have made an unschooler proud (although I know very little about unschooling .. so I am speculating). Brynne immediately woke up and wanted to play ABCya on the computer. She spent a couple of hours playing math and geography games. Meanwhile, Eli started watching Jurassic Park that he had dvr'd on a previous day.

This led into the two kids playing with dinosaurs and reading a book with pictures and pronuciations of dinosaurs.



I did manage to get them to do a tad bit of schoolwork, but they really just wanted to do our Indonesia study. We watched a video on the use of sun and water for power, and then made our own solar oven. (The Craft Nanny, where we got the instructions for our solar oven, was our Favorite Resource this week.)It was too cloudy to cook anything, but it was ready for the first sunny day.


Making the solar oven moved right on into Brynne wanting to recycle a cereal box and egg carton to make a playhouse for her dolls. Then she wanted to play "Brynne's Clues". She does this a lot.


The clues were "Eli and Brynne", "Time", "Cabinet" (that's where their soup was that they were wanting for lunch that day). And the answer was "It's time for Eli and Brynne to eat lunch." I had to give some additional mini-clues for them to get the answer on this one.

We'll call Tuesday "Life Interrupted". But, we still managed to do our Halloween studies. It was a chaotic day, with some serious issues with Kyndal (looks like she is moving back here with us), so I had to make sure I had everything done so I could go meet her at the doctor's office and pick her up to bring her home.


We started our morning with Halloween puzzles, and then went to the library for some computer time and to get our books. We decided just to read them in the story room at the library instead of checking them out and bringing them home. After we got back home we did some Halloween reading comprehension, made our "BOO" banner, and then had some great fun trying to come up with rhyming answers to riddles in Riddles That Rhyme for Halloween Time. That ended up being a really great lesson in rhyming, and a great way to end the day.


Oh, and we put hot dogs and s'mores in our solar oven because it was sunny in the morning. But, it quickly became cloudy so we finished them up in the microwave after our trip to the library.

Wednesday was devoted to costume fittings and a field trip to the (only) pumpkin patch in our area. Yes, we waited until the last possible day to go. Although the patch was picked over, we were able to actually pick small pumpkins off the vine. It was cool to talk to the kids about where pumpkins really come from when we are used to going to pumpkin patches that have the pumpkins already picked for you and sitting in big piles. And we also got to play in some hay and take some pictures.


Then that evening we had a great night trick-or-treating at our town's Main Street Halloween event. My little Ninjas had a fun night!


Thursday was the only real, full, regular day of school we had this week, but it wasn't without distractions. Kyndal was home from school sick. The kids were so happy to have her home that they had a little trouble focusing. But we did manage to get some schoolwork done. We did all of the basics, worked on our writing assignments, did some reading and reading comprehension, watched another video on Indonesia and discussed environments and ecosystems of animals in anticipation of our field trip to the Tulsa Zoo this next Monday. We successfully cooked our hot dogs in the solar oven!! It was a sunshiney, beautiful day!


Kyndal taught them some probability on the whiteboard, when she was feeling better, and then played Hangman with them for a while.



Because of Kyndal's decision to move back home, and her inability to get her things from her dad's, we had to take a full day on Friday to do some shopping. I felt like I was getting a child ready to go to college. We had to buy everything from a toothbrush ... to underwear ... to clothes ... to shoes ... to a hair straightener ... and everything in between. It was a costly trip. But, I am just glad to have my girl back home. We learned about the Prodigal Son in a living, breathing way. Now that's school.

We have had a great weekend and are leaving for Oklahoma for a few days after church tomorrow. We are doing school, though! We are going to the zoo on Monday as part of our Indonesia study, are having our Election studies on Tuesday, and then coming back home to Missouri on Wednesday. It's going to be another wild week. But, this is homeschooling. This is life. This is good.

We are linking up with the following this week ...





Comments

  1. How great that Kyndal is back home! Yay, God!

    Love the Ninjas!! We made a Solar Oven recently, and it took most of the day to cook the hot dogs. LOL

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  2. Ok, so maybe no so much of the "formal education" this past week, but your kids are learning. Isn't it great to be able to be so flexible! Definetly a perk of homeschooling. If you need to get some learning done, but are having trouble with the actual mechanics, do like we do and resort to learning games. We like Learning Games for Kids.
    You all are braver than I am, I would have been afraid to eat the hotdogs after they were out and warming that long! Still, the solar oven looked cool, I bet my daughter would love to make one. Happy homeschooling!

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  3. I love your ending: "This is homeschooling. This is life. This is good." I do love that as homeschooled children our kids experience everyday life and the lessons that are part of life along with us. It sounds like Kyndal has had a rough time but I'm happy for both of you that she is back home. Looks like Eli and Brynne were happy about it, too!

    Awesome job fitting in so much learning in a crazy week. I'm adding solar oven to my list, but we'll have to wait for next year unless we want frozen hotdogs!

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  4. Sounds like a all over the learning board week but a fun week!

    have to say YIPPEE for Kyndal moving back home :) Hope all works out!!!

    Hugs

    Shannon @ letters, numbers and books
    http://lettersnumbersandbooks.wordpress.com/

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  5. I'm so pleased your daughter is back home!!! You're right -- that is school. :-)

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  6. That was a GREAT week! You had some lovely learning going on and sound like you handled the unexpected with grace :)

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  7. Monday does sound like a fantastic day :) Honestly, the whole week sounds great, despite the added things to do. How awesome that your daughter is back home with you! I hope all the issues get worked out for the best.
    We have had a solar oven on our list of projects we want to do, but we haven't gotten to it yet. I will take a look at those directions you linked. Thanks for sharing at Favorite Resources :)

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  8. Love the solar oven! I know my kids would enjoy that too. Thanks for sharing :)

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  9. So glad to hear that your daughter has come back home. Have a great weekend with all your kids under the same roof.
    Blessings
    Diane

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